Here's chapter 24, dealing with 'Saturday Night Gleever'. This one was tough!

Thanks to both rabbitxdrummer and Mellowslinky.

And a quick note- because of the lack of information about Brittany's future- and how she's dealing with it, I've decided to let Glee get further a head until I begin this again because I don't want to try and write around something as big as that. I'll leave the explanation at that for now, but if you want to know more about why, please just drop me a PM or and ask at my Tumblr- lumosknoxobliviate. tumblr. com. I'll be happy to explain.

Ch 24: Nobody, Baby

It had all started when Brittany was on her bed, looking at magazine. The magazine had a brown rabbit on the front and it was called 'Pet'. Her Grandma Pierce had a subscription and when she was finished she'd pass on a stack to Brittany's Mom and Dad who'd put them beside the toilet in case anyone got bored while they did their business and wanted to look at animals. Brittany had picked it up while she was doing her business just because she got bored, but the article she picked turned out to be the most interesting thing she'd ever read so she took it with her back to her room. She flopped back onto her bed and lay on her tummy, spreading the magazine out over her homework and continuing to read.

The article was about pedigree cats. She had three favorite things about the article:

The Burmese breed could be traced back to a single cat.

The study of cats was called Felinology.

There were such things as 'Squittens'- cats with short front legs like a squirrel.

Brittany was so interested in the article that she decided she was going to put it on her wall. She extracted her ruler from between the piles of books on her bed and lined it up carefully against the inside seam of the first page. Then she put her tongue lightly between her teeth- so that she could bite down if she got too anxious- and edged the paper slowly sideways, ripping in a nice, neat line.

She'd gotten three quarters of the way down the page- just past a photo of a Russian Peterbald that kind of looked like Mr Burns- when three things happened at once. The first was Brittany's door opening really hard and fast, so that it banged against the wall and bounced back with a loud noise. The second was that Brittany's hands jumped away from the magazine and third was that she got such a fright that she bit down hard on her tongue. She looked up hurriedly, clamping a hand over her mouth in pain as her tongue started to throb.

Santana was coming across the room to her bed, breathless and flushed, her eyebrows drooping a sort of concern but something else too that Brittany couldn't figure out.

"Sorry Britt-Britt! Did I scare you?"

"Yesp," Brittany tried to say, but her tongue felt fat and useless in her mouth. She kept her hand there- not knowing whether it made much difference to the pain, but too scared to take it away in case it hurt more.

Santana flopped down on her stomach beside Brittany so hard that she made all Brittany's books and stationary bounce up into the air. Then she rolled on her back and passed a hand over her tummy. Brittany looked sideways at her, and she couldn't help but notice the way that the angle Santana was laying made her breasts rise up, rounded out of her bra. She had on a tank top underneath a zip up hoodie which was unzipped and hanging open, just off one shoulder. Even though Santana's chest was almost pure awesomeness, and the way that Santana was running her palm around her ribs and stomach made Brittany a little breathless, Brittany alsoshe had questions that she didn't want to be distracted from. Santana wasn't supposed to be at Brittany's house because of the stack of college brochures she was meant to be going through. There were a lot of colleges and Brittany was almost certain that Santana couldn't have gone over them all in just the three hours since she'd dropped Brittany off after school.

"What happened to the brochures?" Brittany asked.

"I chucked 'em," Santana replied instantly- like she'd been waiting for Brittany's question.

"Oh." Brittany passed her eyes slowly over Santana's face- and she noticed something that made her feel giddy- not in the excited, pre- lady kisses way but in the scared way. Santana's eyes were dark and challenging. And Brittany would have almost described them as 'hard' if she didn't already know that eyes were actually soft and squishy.

She took a breath to ask Santana why she'd put the brochures in the trash when Santana opened her mouth again.

"Yep, I'm done with college. It's all just a trap and all you wind up with is a piece of paper, no job in sight, a shitload of debt, and boarder-line alcoholism. So, I'm done with it."

"Oh," Brittany said again. She didn't quite know what else she wanted to say- and even if she did she was pretty sure she wouldn't say it because she didn't want to get Santana upset.

Santana was still looking at her with her brow furrowed, her mouth set in a hard line. Brittany decided she better nod. She knew it didn't make any sense to nod, but she also knew it was better to nod than not to do anything. Besides, nodding meant that Santana would think Brittany was agreeing with her.

The thing that Brittany was scared of the most was Santana's eyes. Last year, Santana had stood up in front of the glee club and told everyone that she was in love with Dave Karofsky. She'd held his hand and smiled and she'd worn a really hot skirt and blazer that made her look super awesome. But she'd looked around at the glee club with those same eyes – dark and brooding like a storm. She'd put her walls up and no one could challenge her. The day that that had happened, Brittany had gone home and put her head under her pillow and tried to cry out the ache in her chest from seeing Santana gone.

Now Brittany just lay on her bed with her mouth dry and her heart pounding into her mattress. Santana was beside her, buzzing with tension.

"What's wrong?" She asked, her eyes darting all around Brittany's face.

Brittany lifted her shoulders up and down and then lied.

"My tongue hurts."

Santana pouted. "Sorry I scared you."

Brittany shrugged again. And then she looked down because she had just remembered what she'd been doing before Santana had burst in. Her ruler had scattered away from the magazine, and the page she'd been trying to extract was nearly ripped in half.

Brittany kept things ordered in her head using lists. She liked lists because they could never be too long (unless they were lists from Rachel explaining why she should get the nationals solos). She also liked lists because she could sort out all the important stuff so that any time she needed them she could come back and find things easily.

Brittany hadn't made any lists in the last two days, ever since Santana had burst into her room hating college and made Brittany rip her pedigree cat article. She didn't think what had happened over that last few days could be sorted out because it was all a mess; the taut feeling in her chest was still there and so was Santana's craziness. In fact, it had gotten worse, because Santana had made up her mind about what she was going to do instead of college. She wanted to be famous like Blaine's brother. She'd seen his episode of NCIS, and even though he just played a dead body, she became obsessed with everything he'd told them about being famous. The night before, Santana had even stopped sweet lady kisses with Brittany just so they could discuss what outrageous things she'd require in her hotel when she was being flown around the world. Brittany wanted her lady kisses, so she'd shushed her by tugging at her jaw to bring her closer and whispered that she was starting to sound like Rachel.

But that had been an oops because Santana had jerked her head away really hard and glared.

"Don't you think I can be famous like Berry wants to be?" She asked.

And even though Brittany believed with her whole heart that Santana would be, her words had come out all funny and her ears had gone red with the frustration of not being able to say anything right. And then Santana had looked at Brittany again- her eyes so, so, black- and moved carefully but very deliberately off of her. She turned her back and kept ridged and still and wouldn't let Brittany cuddle her. It was only when she had fallen asleep that Brittany was able to shuffle over and sneak her arms around her and it was habit that made Santana subconsciously relax into Brittany's warmth. That had made Brittany sad and happy all at once- because sleepy, cuddly Santana was her secret Santana and no one else's. What was even worse was the next morning, when Santana had woken and rolled out of bed without a word- getting ready for school in the bathroom instead of with Brittany in the bedroom.

And then in Glee Club, Mr Schue did two things that forced Brittany to make an 'Annoyed At Mr Schue Because:' list. He'd ruined the plot of Saturday Night Fever- which Brittany had always wanted to watch, but had avoided because she didn't want to get sick on Saturday nights, and he'd made it so that Santana got even more obsessed with the fame.

After their disco-dance off glee club meeting on Wednesday, Mr Schue had made Santana, Mercedes and Finn stay behind to find out who would win the white suit. Brittany had headed to Cheerios practice alone, and warmed up with the others.

In between the Glee club meeting and Cheerio's practice Sue had gone to inject hormones into her esophagus and she'd left Becky in charge. Whenever this happened, someone would be quick enough to turn off Becky's loud speaker so they could all goof off while she tried to figure out how to turn it back on. Brittany was joking around with a couple of the newer Cheerios members when she was jabbed in the ribs from behind. She turned around to find Santana grinning at her. But the jab had been more painful than anything else and Brittany rubbed at her ribs while Santana pulled her out of the squad's earshot.

Once they were far over by the rolled up netting for badminton games, Santana stooped tugging and stood so close that the toes of their sneakers were touching. She looked up at Brittany through her eyelashes, lowered her voice and said: "You and I have got somewhere else to be right now. Fuck Cheerios practice."

Santana hardly ever ditched Cheerios practice and it made it made the mess in Brittany's head worse.

She tried to ask where else they had to be, but Santana was already leading her out of the gym.

"My bag…" Brittany started, but Santana shook her head warningly and Brittany fell quiet under those dark eyes.

Santana led her right out of the school and down to the bleachers. They were deserted because it was later in the evening and all the dimness made Brittany's skin prickle. Santana was tugging her and walking so fast that Brittany almost tripped.

"Sa-an-taa-na-" she said, her voice jigging with every quick tumble of steps they took. "Coach is gonna be mad."

"I don't give a rat's ass," Santana snapped, not even looking back over her shoulder at Brittany.

She stopped them when they got to the wire fence that prevented anyone from going under the bleachers and expertly flicked the lock open, clanged back the gate and pulled Brittany into the space. It was where Quinn had hung out when she was part of the 'skanks'. It smelt like damp and smoke and it was cold. Brittany looked hesitantly up at the dark underside of the beams which cut the evening sky into slivers above their heads.

"Brittany." Brittany looked down and saw Santana sitting on the couch that Sue had given the skanks when Quinn had agreed to be in the sad video about how Glee club made her crazy.

"Brittany," Santana repeated, her voice edged with impatience. Brittany started because she'd been thinking too much the first time and hadn't replied.

"Yeah?"

"Come here."

Brittany walked over and sat by Santana. The couch smelt a little, and she couldn't tell whether the cushions were cold or damp. She decided not to lean back against it in case she got AIDS. But she didn't have much choice over the matter when Santana promptly surged against her, kissing her so hard their noses bumped together and Brittany's mouth was filled with the sweltering heat of Santana's tongue. She was jerked back against the cushions and Santana switched them around so that Brittany felt herself being pressed flat out along the couch with Santana on top of her.

Brittany could hardly speak because Santana was kissing her so much, and then when she wasn't kissing she was breathing hard and sort of groaning Brittany's name. Her hands were everywhere- on Brittany's boobs- squeezing them through Brittany's uniform- and then up her thighs and then- wiggling against the tight elastic of Brittany's spankies.

Brittany felt like she was drunk- she was all light headed and her thoughts were like wispy clouds rather than heavy dark ones like they had been. It felt nice not to think of anything, but it was scary at the same time. Santana was being rough and desperate and she was tugging against Brittany's spankies so hungrily that her fingers slipped and the elastic snapped back against Brittany's privates - which made her jump and stung a little so that she stuttered amidst their kisses.

The old Santana would have pulled back and jumbled over apologies, giving Brittany light little kisses to make up for it. But Santana with the dark eyes just yanked them more firmly aside, deepened their kiss with a long, vibrating moan onto Brittany's tongue, and then put two of her fingers deep inside her.

It stung- and made Brittany's hips quake at the pressure- but she guessed that Santana had thought that meant she liked it, because she rolled her hips against Brittany and groaned again.

It didn't take long for Brittany's body to get over the shock and respond of its own accord but at the same time it was like Brittany wasn't really part of it all. She was going through the motions but there wasn't all that bursting emotion that made her see stars whenever Santana kissed her or even touched her.

"Babe," Brittany whispered, but Santana didn't stop. So when Santana groaned and tried to kiss her again Brittany jerked her head to the side so that Santana's lips missed. It made Santana pull back and frown. It also made her still her fingers.

"What?" She whispered.

"This couch is real gross," Brittany said on impulse. It was true, but it wasn't the right truth.

Santana's frown deepened, and for a moment Brittany thought she was going to yell. But she didn't. She pulled her fingers out and sat up off Brittany. Like always, Brittany felt a keening ache whenever Santana left her- whenever she'd take her fingers away. But it was usually it a happy ache because Santana would have her wrapped warm and all loose and undone.

But now, Santana pulled away from Brittany and let all the prickles of cold get back to her skin. She sat up and moved away from her on the cold smelly couch. Brittany sat up too and tried to straighten her ponytail. Her chest was bound tight as a rubber band- but she could feel it beginning to unwind. The tears were hot and heavy in her throat and she gulped down air- not able to speak.

When the gulping turned into crying, Santana spun towards her so fast that it startled Brittany and broke the rubber band on her tears- bringing sobs right out into the air around them.

"Babe," Santana exclaimed, skidding across the cushions and tangling her arms around Brittany- pulling them together untidily. "Don't cry, no, don't cry. I'm sorry. I know… I know what I did wrong and I'm sorry."

Brittany tried her very best to control her crying because she didn't want Santana to think she was hurt or sad. Neither of those things explained how she was feeling. She was just overwhelmed and tired. She was really tired.

Santana was stroking the hair off of her forehead- and Brittany liked that. She leant her head on Santana's shoulder and tried to breathe evenly. The couch and the messy tears made her want a shower and she thought maybe Santana was back to Brittany's Santana because she stood them up real slow and murmured, "I'll take you home. We'll go home and we'll have a bath. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have…"

It was really dark under the bleachers now, and Brittany really wanted to leave before they got murdered, but before they did that she stopped and pulled Santana up against her. She kissed her- warm and soft and she hoped it would take away the wounded look that Santana had.

"Don't get sad San. I'm not sad."

But Santana was staring at her in disbelief. "What are you then?"

Usually, Brittany had a list for these sorts of questions. She could be "good", "fine", and "awesomely unicorn" all at the same time, but she couldn't be "good", "fine" and "upset", or; "good", "awesomely unicorn", and "nervous." She knew that it wasn't the way feelings worked which meant that her feelings must have been broken because she felt "comforted" and "nervous" at the same time. She didn't know how to mix them to make an emotion baby that would cover both so she just shrugged and said a bit of the truth.

"I don't understand how you're going to just be all famous and not have to go to college. Mr Schue said we have to turn our dreams into a plan but I can't see your plan and it makes me get worried and then I get all tight…" Brittany paused when she realized what she'd said," ...not down there though but...well yeah, down there too... and everywhere else so that I can't do lady-love stuff because it hurts but I also can't do much else because everywhere else feels all wound up too. Like today, instead of doing my math test I drew a bird."

Brittany stopped talking because she had to breathe, and when she looked at Santana she saw that she had her melted ice cream face on- the one that is all puddles of sweetness. Her eyes were crinkled at the corners and she stepped forwards and hugged Brittany so hard Brittany couldn't breathe- but that was okay because it helped slow down her hiccuppy tears.

"I love you so much. God, I love you. And I'll show you. I'll show you how I'm going to deal with the future thing okay?" She pulled back and gave Brittany her "I want you to nod" look. "Okay?"

Brittany nodded.

"Mr Schue gave us an assignment to try figure out how to own our dreams and trust me," she bopped Brittany lightly on the tip of her nose. "I got this."

They left the bleachers, and they didn't go back into the gym. When they walked past it they could hear the squeak of sneakers and the whine of Sue's loudspeaker, but Santana navigated them away toward the parking lot, her arm wrapped tightly around Brittany's waist. And all Brittany could think of was how their footsteps were exactly in time- like there was only one of them.

Mr Shue's assignment for Santana, Mercedes and Finn turned out to be using a Saturday Night Fever song to explore what you wanted to do with your life.

The next morning, Santana was scheduled to perform her song, but she wouldn't tell Brittany which one she was going to do- which made Brittany feel like it was the evening before Christmas. After they'd taken a bath together, Santana had set her up in bed with food and One Tree Hill and then left to go practice. She'd promised that it would help explain everything to Brittany. That's what she'd said.

The song was called "If I Can't Have You" and Brittany hadn't heard the original, but she was pretty sure there was no way it could be sung by anyone other than Santana. Watching Santana up on the disco floor had made Brittany radiate pride. It swelled up and clogged her throat and made her eyes cry but she was so, so happy. Santana was perfect and her voice took Brittany's breath away. The nicest thing was that even though Santana would look around the room, smiling and engaging everyone else, she'd always end up back in front of Brittany, or her eyes would dart over- like Brittany was her anchor.

But then after the song, Santana had called fame her mistress- and said that she couldn't live without it. Everyone had looked at Brittany after Santana said it. Brittany had felt their stares and their silent questions but she just kept her eyes trained straight on Santana and smiled extra hard.

After Glee club practice, Santana caught Brittany's hands and kissed her quickly on the side of the mouth.

"See you at lunch baby!" she called, and darted out the door to get changed back into her uniform, leaving Brittany blinking and completely blank about what to do. So she began to walk to homeroom even though it wasn't time for class yet.

While she walked, Brittany thought that she should try make a list about the ways she could help Santana be brave. She was so busy thinking about that and looking at the floor at the same time that she walked right into a set of lockers (because she didn't walk in the middle of the hallway enough.). She hit her forehead and her nose and stumbled backwards.

"Ow." She rubbed her nose first because it hurt the most.

"That was one of the greatest feats of intelligence I think I've ever seen you display Brittany. Barney the Dinosaur would be proud of you. Maybe you're ready to go to the toilet on your own."

"I already can," Brittany turned around and Coach Sue was standing in the hallway behind her, wearing a crooked half smile.

"Oh I know, sweet Brittany. Thaaat," she ducked her head close and said her words slowly, "was sarcasm. But that's a grown up word so never mind."

"I know that…"

"Uh-uh-uh," Coach Sue waggled a hand in front of her face. "Don't think too much. I want you as lucid as possible for this little chat we're going to have."

Brittany felt her thoughts thicken. She didn't like it when Coach Sue said that stuff. "Can you tell the future?" She asked.

Coach Sue just smiled and jerked her head for Brittany to follow her.

When they got to her office, Coach Sue went around behind her desk and sat in her chair and leant. She pulled her hands to her stomach and looked at Brittany.

Brittany sat down in the chair on the left side of the desk. She hadn't been in Coach Sue's office alone for a long time, and it felt weird not having Santana beside her in the right chair. Once, when Coach had been super mean to them, Santana had reached over under the desk and held Brittany's hand. That had been a long time ago, before they'd joined Glee club.

Brittany was pretty sure that Coach was going to say something mean about her missing practice the day before, so she held her own hand under the desk.

"Now, Brittany," Coach's voice was grave and she shifted in her chair so that she could lean her elbows on her desk and steeple her fingers, "before we go any further, I want to address the camel toe in the room that was your lady's jumpsuit in her performance just now."

Brittany didn't know what a camel toe was but she didn't say that. She clenched her hands around one another more tightly.

"But," Coach continued, "aside from that I think you and I both know that Santana has got a few issues that need to be flattened out- not including the ridiculous silicon bags that are hanging off her chest. I warn you now Brittany- they may be fun to motorboat but give it 5 years and you'll be able to bunch one up and whirl it around like a lasso."

Brittany tilted her head to the side and tried to image using a boob as a lasso. "I don't…"

"Never mind, never mind. I digress. I'll be frank with you Dipsy, in 7 years, when Kitty Kelly embarks on her research tour for her Unofficial Biography of one Sue Sylvester, I will not have one of my former head cheerleaders be tracked to the back alley of Hooters, shooting up cooked washing powder into her ear drums. That would be a horrendous smear on my reputation equaling, if not surpassing, the shame of my head cheerleader from the 2007 squad who went on to become an environmental activist," Coach spat the last words out like were a chicken bone she'd been about to swallow. "If Sand-bags carries on this way then I'm afraid she's off the squad for good."

Brittany pressed her lips together and squeezed her hand with her other hand so hard she thought her knuckles might break through the skin. She could feel her ears and cheeks getting so hot that they were throbbing. She also thought she might cry soon.

"I don't want Santana to be kicked off the Cheerios." She tried to speak with her lips really close together so that none of the control she was using not to cry would escape. "What do I do?"

"Well, use whatever depraved acts you do to make her follow you around looking like the pug dog from Milo and Otis. Then try to subvert the course of her inherent racial affiliation with speaking loudly and wearing skirts that show the bottom of her butt cheeks and try and get her to come up with a future plan good enough to merit inclusion in the "Sue Sylvester and the Stars she has Influenced" chapter of my biography."

Brittany swallowed.

"What if she doesn't listen?"

Coach took off her glasses, shrugged, and said: "I'm going to have to find a new cheer captain."

One thing that nobody but Brittany knew about Santana for a long time was the fact that she was lying when she said she'd just joined the Cheerios to meet boys and be popular. Ever since their first practice, Brittany had watched Santana go through their routines until she was out of breath and sweating, the concentration mademaking her face angular and her mouth pinched and Brittany had slowly realized that Santana was far more invested in cheerleading that she let on.

There was the way that Santana would mouth the dance steps to herself, and gush the air out of her chest in disappointment when she messed something up that made Brittany fascinated by her. Even though dancing was like breathing to Brittany, she had been in awe of Santana- at the deliberation that she put into the moves and the way she made them almost a scientific process. She had the voice for the calls too- loud and clear and commanding. Not like Quinn's frail voice which had been her one downfall while she was cheering (apart from the baby that she got).

Santana had gotten in early to the state wide cheerleading magazine that was sent out to coaches, sponsors and parents. Once, she'd even landed Brittany a cover- but Santana had still been the one that who got the interview inside because she made everything sound like it had already been written by a journalist. When the copy with Brittany on the front had arrived she'd eagerly ripped off the cover and put it in her locker. But she hadn't thrown away the rest of the magazine like she'd told Santana. She'd kept it so that she could read Santana's smart words whenever she wanted. She'd even recorded a video of Santana practicing. And when they'd been split into different groups to perform last year at Regionals, Brittany had taped Santana's part and put it on her computer so that, like the article, she could watch Santana be amazing even when Santana wasn't around.

Brittany left Coach Sue's office going over all this in her head until she felt fuzzy and panicked.

She knew that Coach had been serious, because her office was a serious place and only serious talks happened there. Which meant that Brittany had to come up with a plan really soon, because getting kicked off the Cheerios would really hurt Santana's feelings. And Brittany had a funny feeling that it would make her fame obsession worse.

When Brittany got home from school she was exhausted and sad. She dumped her bag by her bed and flopped belly first onto it- not even using her arms to break the fall. It made her go "hummphh," as the breath was snatched out of her, but it felt good to hit hard against a comforting place- and really know it was there. She opened her eyes into slits and inched her hand up under the pillow near her head and tugged out the t-shirt that Santana had worn to bed the night before when she'd stayed over. Brittany folded the material around her index finger and then brought it up to swipe slowly around her cheeks, lips and the tip of her nose. After a moment, she stopped and just held it hard against her nose and inhaled its scent. It smelled like Santana's sleepy skin and her deodorant.

The smell made something swell in Brittany's chest and up her throat- until it felt like she'd swallowed a balloon whole and it was floating its way back up. Brittany missed Santana- even though she'd seen her just before school finished. She missed all the things Santana used to be sure of- like how she wanted to make her place in the world matter and change things. She'd talk about it sometimes- little things she thought could be altered about the world, but then she'd brush them off with a snide remark. Luckily, Brittany knew the sounds of Santana's truths. She knew them by heart. And she listened very carefully for them.

Brittany tried to think of all the things she could do to make Santana not want fame and want her old goals back. She tried to think of movies which could help, but the only one in her mind was Cinderella Story with Hilary Duff and Chad Michel Murray. She and Santana had watched it in bed a couple of weeks earlier because Brittany loved Chad Michael Murray. But then she'd been distracted by how when she lay behind Santana and looked over her shoulder at the movie all she could smell was Santana's perfume. And how heavy and warm her boob was when Brittany accidentally touched it while they were trying to get comfortable.

Brittany decided to stop thinking about movies and sweet lady kisses with Santana because it didn't help her figure out any plan. She sat up and leaned over to rifle through her school bag, pulling out a few sheets of clean paper and a pen. Then she pulled her binder over from where she'd dropped it across the mattress and used it to lean on. At the top of one of the pieces of paper Brittany wrote:

Santana's Future

She underlined it and put hearts on either end. Then she wrote: Things Santana Is Good At:

Sex

Singing

Dancing

Smelling nice

Being mean to Rachel Berry

Cooking

Kissing

Cheerleading

Running baths

Being in baths

Sex

Getting free food from Breadstix

Wearing lingerie

Brittany lifted the tip of her pen off the paper and ran her eyes back up the list. There were heaps more things she could add but she thought if she kept going she'd never be able to figure out how to use them to make Santana want to go to college again.

And then suddenly, a word and an idea jumped into her head like a double attack on her senses. She launched herself back over the bed and searched through her bag until she'd found the list she'd made earlier in the day after she'd talked to Coach Sue. Her 'How People Get Famous Super-Fast' list. She scanned her way through it rapidly, her heart beating really fast in her chest, until she found the one right at the bottom, with the longest list of celebrity names beside it. Sex tape.

They'd done it on the one and only night it had rained over their Christmas trip to Santa Fe. Brittany's parents had decided to stay in and rent a movie. They'd asked Santana and Brittany to join but Brittany had told them no thank you. She and Santana went to their own room down the hall and made out for ages while the rain tapped insistently on the window. After a while they decided to go down to the shop across the road and gets snacks. In the elevator on the way back up, Brittany had decided that she wanted to make out again, so she'd set down the shopping bag and beckoned Santana closer, jutting her hips out so that their middles pressed together. Brittany had had a lot of practice, so she knew exactly how to kiss so that Santana's eyelids go all heavy and her mouth opened to let her fast breathing out. When their kiss ended, Brittany knew she'd made Santana really flustered because she bit her lip, looked up at the illuminated numbers that showed the floors passing and blew air up her face in frustration.

"Can this thing hurry up? I just want…" Brittany saw her eyes bug as she lifted them to the ceiling.

"Oh shit," she muttered, dropping them back down and giving a breathy kind of laugh. "They have cameras. I bet we just made some security guard a very happy man."

After that, Brittany couldn't stop thinking about what it must be like to watch her and Santana kiss. Just the thought of it made her insides tug excitedly. So, when they got back into the hotel room Brittany firmly locked the door, threw down their bag of candy and went to the bedside table to open her laptop. Santana, yawning, flung herself on her back across the bed, and turned her head sideways to watch Brittany.

"What movie do you wanna watch babe? You can choose."

Brittany didn't answer the question while she brought up the 'Photo Booth' program and switched it to video mode. Then she tossed her hair over one shoulder and looked at Santana, looked back at the screen, and angled it on the bedside table to that the bottom half of the bed and Santana lying across it could be seen. Brittany could see through the picture on the screen that Santana was frowning at her.

"What are you doing?"

Brittany turned around and shifted onto the bed, swinging her knee over Santana's hips so that she was straddling her. Santana looked back and forth between Brittany above her and the recording video on the laptop with her eyebrows quirked up.

"Uh… Britt?"

"I want to see what it looks like when we kiss," Brittany whispered. She lowered her head, cupped Santana's face so that she had to look up, and then kissed her soft and deep on the mouth. Santana sucked the air in sharply through her nose and groaned. It urged Brittany on. She made the kiss coaxing and heavy and then soft and teasing- and muddled it altogether until Santana's body was rolling beneath her own and her hands were clinging onto Brittany's shoulders.

As they kissed, Brittany left one hand on Santana's face, but travelled the one closest to the camera over Santana's boob, slipping it inside her bra. When she found Santana's nipple already swollen into a tip, Brittany took her mouth from Santana's and lifted the material up, angling it so that it hid Santana's boob from the camera. Then she lowered her mouth to Santana's nipple and took it gently into her mouth. As she sucked with her lips and swirled her tongue over it, Brittany looked up into the camera and watched herself do it, feeling all her insides liquefy as she saw the camera capturing Santana's face, just above Brittany's shoulder- her eyes closed and her mouth parted in a moan, her hands and fingers all trussed up through Brittany's hair.

That video was the shortest of a series of four, because just after that Santana had squirmed her way out from under Brittany and hit the 'stop' button, before trying to launch herself back onto the bed. But Brittany had made them sit together and watch it. It had been a good idea because when she looked over at Santana she saw that Santana's breathing was shallow, and she was staring at the screen in awe.

After that, it hadn't been hard for Brittany to convince Santana that they should make another one. The next recording showed Brittany laying on the bed with Santana standing over her, slowly taking off her top and unbuttoning her jeans, then crawling up to straddle Brittany, her hair a dark mass over one shoulder, her eyes raised hungrily to Brittany's face as she bent down and trailed her tongue from the line of Brittany's underwear right up to in between the cups of her bra.

The next two Brittany decided that she shouldn't watch while she was trying to sort her plan out, because she never ended up being able to do anything while those videos were playing- except try to breathe. She sat up on her bed and stretched across it to her bedside table to snatch her phone. She clicked into her contacts and when she got to the right name she hit 'call', settling her laptop onto her lap as she waited for the call to connect.

"Alright, so once you have your in and out points of the clip, you can now hit the 'insert' button I told you about before and that will put the clip in the timeline."

Artie was speaking nice and slowly.

"Got that?"

"Insert button…insert button…" Brittany muttered under her breath, sweeping her mouse around the screen until she remembered. "Hah! Yep, okay…it's… it's added!"

She shifted the phone up higher with her shoulder so that it pressed harder to her ear.

"Yuss, good work. Now you just have to do that with all the bits you want to include in your video."

"Cool and you'll…"

"Yep, I'll come over tomorrow after school and help you from there."

"Cool! Thanks for this Artie."

"S'all good," Artie said, "I'm actually excited to see LT, it's been a long time since we hung out."

Brittany laughed. "He'll be a pretty big star and I have him on a tight call schedule tomorrow so don't expect a very long conversation!"

"No, no," Artie chuckled, "it'll be down to business pretty quickly."

Artie had processed Brittany's sex tape idea really well. He hadn't even been weirded out, Brittany didn't think, although it was hard to tell over the phone. His voice had gone all sort of high and weird but he'd cleared it and it had gone back to normal.

Brittany knew she was going to need help editing and she knew from when he'd helped her with Fondu for Two that he knew how to make videos awesome. The best thing would have been to have him with her and helping her right now- but she couldn't do that until she'd edited out the naughty parts of the videos that were only for her and Santana.

While she'd been looking through her videos on her lap top she'd found ones she'd taken last year of Lord Tubbington cleaning. She'd recorded them for her next online video project of her documentary about domesticated cats, but it had never really gotten off the ground. She told Artie about them when they were on the phone and he said that she should use them to mix up the sex tape- and make it so that they could call it 'Two Girls One Pussy'. But Brittany had decided that it would make her and Santana sound like conjoined twins so she'd suggested 'Two Girls One Cat'.

Brittany was uber excited about the plan until it came to the next day and she and Artie were sitting in the library with the video all ready to upload. Brittany had her finger hovering over the 'upload' button but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She looked over at Artie, who was nodding at the screen.

"Come on. Do it," he urged.

"But what if…what if she gets really mad at me and breaks up with me?" She bit her lip to stop herself saying anything else, because she didn't think talking to Artie about this stuff would be okay. Artie tilted his head at her and ducked it close.

"Hey," he said, his voice low and serious. "Brittany, you're doing this to help her. And sure, she's going to be a little freaked out and annoyed but once she gets what you were trying to do she'll thank you for it. Trust me."

Brittany looked at him and wished the things he'd said could make her feel better. But she still felt all twisty in her stomach.

"Let me just watch it one more time okay."

Artie rolled his eyes. "Fine."

They plugged in an ear phone each to their ears and Brittany clicked play. Immediately, the soundtrack of a porno movie that Artie had added under the clips began. Brittany had to smile, because straight away Lord Tubbington filled the screen- purring and ducking his head around the camera lens to try and get past it to Brittany.

The video was only two minutes long- but Brittany had scrutinized it so many times it seemed way longer. When it was done she took her earphone out and looked at Artie.

"Okay," she breathed, nodding.

He pressed his lips together and nodded once too. Then he leant over, and clicked the 'upload' button.

"Auto-bots roll out."

There was a long, cool moment of silence after Brittany finished telling Coach Sue what she'd done. She had a hand curled around her mouth and she was frowning at Brittany, thinking really hard. Then she took her hand away and picked up a pen, clicking the tip in and out. Brittany had her hands clasped together again, the butterflies in her stomach were going crazy.

"Interesting," Coach Sue said, really slowly, looking down at her pen. Brittany looked at it too, not sure if that's what Coach thought was interesting. But then she put the pen down and smiled so widely that Brittany was a bit weary.

"You know, for a while there I was very seriously considering having you wear a helmet during Cheerios practice because I was concerned that one more blow to the head could mean the end of your ability to dress yourself. But now I see that you've got some sort of," she waved her hand around Brittany's head, "twisted genius up there somewhere I think this could be something we really capitalize on here," Coach said, picking up her pen again and clicking it vigorously. Then she swiped a bit of loose paper from a pile near Brittany and began to write furiously.

She wrote for a long time- and she almost took up a whole page. A couple of times she stopped and drew a sharp line through a few words and then carried on again. Once she'd finished, she didn't let Brittany read it right away. Instead, she swiveled her chair around and bent down to open a cupboard that Brittany hadn't seen before. Then she shut it and turned her chair back around, placing a black lump in a plastic wrapping on the desk and sliding it, along with the paper across to Brittany.

Brittany blinked down at the page. "What's this?"

"It contains a monologue that you shall perform verbatim to Santana and it stands as a step up from your plan- to completely annihilate any scrap of desire she has to become famous. Do you understand me?"

Brittany gulped under Coaches ridged gaze, but she nodded and turned her eyes down to the paper. "Yes your Highness." Then she caught sight of the black thing and remembered her question.

"What's that?"

Coach Sue's face split into a grin and she sat back in her chair, exhaling in contentment.

"That, my friend, is a bull's testicle."

Brittany blinked down at it, trying to figure out whether she was disgusted or fascinated. "Why…"

"It's on the paper," Coach interrupted, "take it with you and have someone read it out to you nice and slow so you understand."

Brittany nodded. She knew Artie would help her with that one.

"Alright, well if we're done now I have to go and do my twice-daily uterus stretching exercises." Coach pushed up out of her chair and Brittany stood too, bending as quickly as she could to get a disc from the front pocket of her bag that had been sitting at her feet. She held it out to Coach Sue who looked at it, wrinkled her nose and then shook her head.

"Frankly Brittany, I'd rather give birth to a sprightly garden gnome than watch that sex tape."

"Sex tape…Oh. Oh no," Brittany shook her head really hard so that her pony-tail whipped her in the face. "That's not. No, this is a video that Artie helped me make of Santana cheerleading. I thought...well I thought seeing as some colleges from around here offer cheer scholarships that we could apply with that video and get her one. And that would help you too, wouldn't it?" Nerves had made Brittany's voice all high and funny. "You know, because when that Kitty Cat lady comes looking for old cheerleaders they can show how Santana got in on a scholarship because of what you taught her."

Slowly, Coach reached out and took the disk, looking at Brittany the whole time. Her face had gone sort of soft.

"A couple of phone calls to speed this video around the cheerleading college circuit and we could probably make this happen," she said.

Brittany nodded, and then she began to smile so wide she thought her cheeks would burst. It took a moment, but Coach smiled softly back.

They were lying in the grass at a park that Santana had driven them to, letting the sun stream all over their bodies. Santana kept on holding up the acceptance letter from Louisville above their heads- letting the sunlight shine through it so that all the tiny grains in the paper were lit up and the words looked like they were written in the sky. Brittany could hardly see, so she just closed her eyes and hummed in happiness, listening to Santana read the words out loud again.

After she finished she said: "I can't believe you did this for me."

Brittany kept her eyes closed, but she had to stop humming so she could say: "There's nothing I wouldn't do for you."

"Except eat a bull's ballsack?"

Brittany peeked one eye open,. Santana was lying on her side facing her, her mouth all twisted up in a mischievous smile. It made Brittany smile too.

"I already told you I ate one."

"Bullshit!" Santana exclaimed, shoving her lightly. Brittany fluttered her eyes closed and smiled even wider.

"Not bull's shit, bull's testicles," she corrected.

She heard Santana's clothes rasp with movement, and then the sunlight patterns on the insides of her eyelids shifted into shadow. She opened her eyes a second before Santana pressed herself right up along her left side.

Her skin was warm and her eyes, so close to Brittany's, were very, very bright. Softly, Santana reached up and pressed her finger against the tip of Brittany's nose.

"You're silly." Her voice was low and thick with emotion. Brittany could hear it. It didn't sound like tears though, just happy. It was the sound of happiness. "Come here," she murmured, and curved her hand through Brittany's hair, bringing her in. Brittany rolled over on her side, feeling the grass prickle the bare skin of her legs and arms.

Santana kissed her- slow and lazy and filled with sunlight. Then she pulled away, but Brittany wasn't ready to stop and, keeping her eyes closed, she pulled Santana in again. But her hands met resistance and then Santana jerked her head out of Brittany's grasp which made Brittany open her eyes in panic. Santana was twisting one way and then another, searching around them, her eyes wide and fearful.

"What?" Brittany frowned up into Santana's face- too scared to look anywhere else.

"Just checking," Santana said, ducking her head back down and swishing her nose back and forth against Brittany's.

Brittany giggled and rubbed her back and then asked, "what for?"

Santana's must have thought her own answer was funny, because she laughed before saying "cameras."